Monday, May 14, 2007

St. Louis Record Show Recap

Okay, it's been over a week since my trip to St. Louis to hit yet another record show. Sorry that I didn't get this posted sooner. I was busy cleaning up and listening to my new found treasures last week. Had a great time at the show, as usual. Brought home another huge pile of records. More on that in a bit.

A couple of things before I move on. First, there was a spike in activity on the blog last week. For a few days, we went from our usual 70 or so hits per day up to around 500. I'm not sure why that was. Maybe we got a special mention somewhere, people were finding us through Gabcast or maybe the same folks are coming and going more often as they check out the posted mp3's. Whatever the reason, thanks to all who've checked out the blog and I hope that everyone will want to come back and visit again. Incidentally, even with the increased traffic and posted sound files, the number of comments being left on the blog hasn't increased very much. Interesting.

Also, with mp3 capability now a reality, I wanted to go back and post sound files for some of the songs that have been blogged here over the past (nearly) two years. I toyed with the idea of reposting some of the previous entries and attaching mp3's to them but, for now, have settled on adding an mp3 player to the right hand side of the page, just under our links section. Right now, there are a handful of our previous entries there for the listening. Test out the mp3 player if you'd like and let me know how it works for you. If you like any of the songs, you'll find commentary on them in our archives.

Now, back to the matter at hand, my record show take. I mentioned here before that I live in a small town. It's a 100 mile drive, each way, to St. Louis. On top of that, I always spring for the early bird admission, meaning it's up at 6am on record show Sundays. Getting there early nets more good discs and, although it didn't seem to help much this time, gets me outta there and back home at a decent hour. I had a beautiful day this time around. Not too hot, which is a good thing, since I recently discovered that the air conditioning in my car went bye bye.

The following list isn't the sum total of what I brought home from the show but is a good representative sample and among the best stuff. The St. Louis shows are always great for finding cheap 45's. That held true this time, even though the number of dealers was down. The last table I went to was a guy who had about ten huge boxes of singles, all priced at three for five bucks. And he had all sorts of good stuff. Completely made up for the smaller dealer turnout.

Anyway, here's the list. You'll see a little bit of everything, including early rockers, r&b, soul, garage rock, instrumentals and a few other things.

6 comments:

You got a Beefheart 45 for a handful of singles? Very impressive. How's the Piltdown men 45? I know a guy who used to see them in, I think, Detroit, back in the 60s. (Thanks, also, for teh correction on the location of the Reds' AAA team. My very dumb.)

Stuart, that Beefheart 45 was in the guys 3 for $5 stash. It's a bit beat but plays fine. It's the second Beefheart disc I've found this year. Earlier, I nabbed a copy of his "Diddy Wah Diddy" on A&M at Goodwill (also beat but playable).

The Piltdown Men 45 is solid rock & roll instro stuff. None of their discs seem to be spectacular but are worth tracking down for a buck or two.

The only reason I knew the Reds AAA thing is that I used to be an Indy native and had Indians season tickets for four years. They've bounced from the Expos to the Reds to the Brewers and now the Pirates over the last 15 years or so.

Hey I am glad that you enjoyed your Ox-Bow Incident record. I am a member of the group and we recorded 3 45's in the sixties. Glad to see that someone wanted the record after all these years. If you want to hear more you can log on to www.myspace.com/theoxbowincident

Danny, you're quite welcome, glad that you enjoyed reading the list. That Bo Diddley disc has quickly become a favorite of mine too. In fact, I have it planned for a blog entry in the very near future.

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